"I must go in, for the fog is rising."
This weekend was what qualifies as a slow weekend for me, though it was not, by any means, slow. My weekend I guess technically started on Thursday night, when I went out for a pre-dinner gelato with a friend and ended up listening in on a completely Italian conversation between her and the owner of the shop. I was impressed with myself in that I was actually able to understand a vast majority of the conversation, but the fact that I could only speak a couple sentences in Italian to add to the discussion was somewhat sad. Always the observer and never the main attraction (or any attraction, for that matter)--story of my life.
After that wonderful encounter (no sarcasm), there was an OUA progressive dinner starting at 6:30. We went from apartment to apartment, eating scamorza and sausage crostini at one, pasta al ragu at another, chili and potatoes and meatballs and chicken at a third, and then finally desserts at the OUA FIR's residence. We then headed across the hall to OUA where we karaoke'd the night away. Unfortunately, I cannot say that I refrained from performing myself--I sang "Be a Man" from Mulan with my hiking group from Naples. It was fun, though I doubt I will ever perform karaoke in front of my professors ever again, haha.
Friday morning started out with pasta making--wooooooo! We went to a little community center type building and learned how to make ravioli, tagliatelli, and gnocchi from scratch--and then got to eat the results. It was, shall I say, DELICIOUS, and well worth the effort (though there was definitely a lot of effort put in, haha). Then, Friday afternoon, I spent pretty much the rest of the day, from 4 pm on, playing D&D (minus a short dinner break for burgers, lol). I am almost ashamed to say that I enjoyed D&D, but what can I say? I'm a total nerd. Besides, when else do you have friends slinging dung at dwarves and missing and hitting each other, or someone quoting "Mean Girls" to an angel and telling it that someone is an ungrateful "fugly slut" and to "drop the b****"? Haha, out of context it is so random and ridiculous, but it was a great time, and I can't wait to continue our quest.
Saturday was perhaps the slowest day this weekend. . . Lol. I didn't go out and do anything til around 12:30, at which point I meandered along the antique fair up to OUA, from which a group of us set out to do some litter pickup along the city wall before going off on a roughly 13 mile hike up the mountains behind the city. We went along the aqueduct out of Arezzo, up a hill through San Polo, farther up the mountain (along a road marked "danger zone" every few feet) following trail blazes up to Alpe di Poti--where there was apparently an epic car race yesterday. Of course, at the top I had to be nice and clumsy and slip in mud, then by reflex reaching out to grab onto something and grasping a handful of barbed wire. Let's just say that my hand has some nice scratches on it that were bleeding pretty badly in the aftermath. . .
Yesterday I headed out with a small group to Perugia, an adorable little Italian town that is only an hour away by train and was totally worth the trip. First off, when you arrive at the train station you get to switch over to the adorable little minimetro in order to get up to the old city on the mountain. (It was comparable to either a really slow adorable rollercoaster or a more fun version of a Disney tram; take your pick, haha.)
Once up on the hill, we took a cool "inclined elevator" up to the "top floor" of the city, where I sat in a cute little cafe (the Living Cafe) staring over the hills and countryside of Umbria while eating a delicious chocolate croissant--and enjoying the warm weather and sunlight. It was wonderful; I could've sat there all day, but we had stuff to see.
From there we headed down to the main piazza and the duomo and Fontana Maggiore. The square was beautiful (as per usual) and the church gorgeous (which we luckily got to see in between Sunday masses).
(More info on Perugia and pics will come later, but for now I wanted to put a little bit about my adventurous weekend online, haha. Ciao!)
Image Information. All are personal photos. In order, they are: Perugia from the stairs above Porto Etrusco, . . .
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